It is popular for race car drivers to use helmets with visors for protection. Both before a race and during a race, the driver must constantly be monitoring dash board gauges below their windshield in the car cockpit such as the warning lights for oil pressure, engine temperature, pressure sensors, and the like. For example, if a red oil light goes on, the driver must immediately shut down the car. Similarly, the driver must be cognizant of when engine temperature, and other engine type sensor warning lights turn on. Furthermore, the race driver generally relies on a standard rpm (revolutions per minute) shift light that turns on as the driver is revving the engine, which tells the driver when to shift gears. The typical helmet with attached visor when worn gives the driver a limited field of sight making it difficult for the driver to both concentrate on the race and look down to monitor the warning gauges and the (rpm switch) shift indicator lights. Similar problems exist for motorcycle racers who also use helmets with visors.
Various types of devices have been proposed for helmets. See for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,722,101 to Blower; U.S. Pat. No. 4,891,736 to Gouda; U.S. Pat. No. 5,083,246 to Lambert; U.S. Pat. No. 5,207,500 to Rios et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,327,587 to Hurwitz; U.S. Pat. No. 5,408,393 to Becker and U.S. Pat. No. 5,544,027 to Orsano. However, these devices are primarily used for indicating to persons other than the driver a light display such as a turn signal, and the like. None of these devices address the problems presented above.